Lifeblood Creates Brand Identity from DNA

Meet the members behind the agency that built its branding through literal blood, sweat and tears.

by Lauren Festa

How do you build a brand identity? You do your research, see what the competition is doing, make a logo that looks dope and speaks to what you do. From choosing the color scheme to your tone of voice, consistency is key. It’s got to look good, tell people what you are all about and why you’re different. And it should feel personal. So when creative director Travis Weihermuller and producer Dominic Santalucia set out to build their own brand identity for their Brooklyn-based agency lifeblood, they decided to quite literally put their DNA into it.

From an unlikely source, the brand identity for lifeblood started in a lab, where the founding partners had their DNA analyzed to create the initial visual. The results were broken into lines of equal length wherein the breaks in the lines formed the DNA and the design foundation for their brand identity. The sequences were then intentionally randomized into one set with the original file being destroyed. In that way, it would be impossible to know which section of DNA belonged to whom. Whats more, the DNA of the brand is sort of a living entity on its own. The lines are used in randomly generated sequences throughout different mediums to show how the identity adapts wherever it resides, so that each application shows a slightly different sequence. As the agency grows, so too will the amount of these DNA sequences. The beautiful part about it – besides the really cool design – is how personal it really is. Travis and Dominic wanted to avoid bogus brand exercises to get something that was really unique and authentic. “Branding rarely translates to digital successfully and that’s why websites end up looking the same” they surmise. “Few digital experiences are memorable or meaningful anymore. Typically, branding for digital means placing a logo in the upper left hand corner. For us, branding is part of the website design process from day one.” There’s that consistency thing again.

“The identity explores how brands can live in digital while playing on the juxtaposition of digital made human.”

It’s an interesting idea, given the fact that so much of our real lives are lived out on digital platforms. We also love the idea that this is not just a one-time branding, but an evolution. “The reality is what we think of as a brand identity is rapidly changing before your eyes and we wanted to explore what that future could look like. Something that isn’t necessarily your typical stand alone brand identity but more of a visual language that can adapt with the expanding mediums that it could live within.”

“The design is meant to be enigmatic, it plays on our natural instinct to create patters to derive meaning. People are instantly curious when they see the identity. They…want to understand the idea behind the design. This creates a meaningful conversation with a story to tell.”